Terms of Service

1. Who you are contracting with

KORA is operated by Gabriel NDUWAYEZU, Bujumbura, Burundi ("KORA", "we", "us").

By creating an account or using KORA, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use KORA.

2. What KORA is

KORA is a real-time knowledge dueling platform. Players face each other in timed duels of ten questions, earn or lose Elo rating, and appear on public leaderboards and profiles.

KORA is free. There is nothing to buy, and we do not take payments.

KORA is in beta. We may add, change or remove features as the platform develops.

3. Minimum age

You must be at least 13 years old to use KORA. Where the law of your country sets a higher minimum age for using an online service, or for consenting to the processing of your personal data without a parent's involvement, that higher age applies to you instead.

When you create an account you are asked to confirm that you meet the age that applies to you. We do not ask for your date of birth and we cannot verify your age.

4. Your account

You are responsible for keeping your account secure and for everything done through it.

You may not share your account, or create several accounts in order to influence rankings — for example by playing yourself, or by feeding wins to another account.

Your username is public and appears on the leaderboard, on your profile, and in the results of every duel you play. You may change it once every 30 days. We may rename an account whose username is offensive, impersonates someone, or is otherwise inappropriate, and we will tell you when we do.

5. Playing without an account

You can play KORA as a guest, without registering. Guest duels are practice: they run against an automated opponent on your own device, they earn no rating, and nothing about them is recorded. These Terms still apply while you use the site.

6. Automated opponents

While KORA is in beta, some duels are played against automated opponents. This happens when no suitable human player is available — the player base is still growing, and we would rather you play than wait. As more players join this will become rarer, and we intend to phase it out.

These duels are rated, and count towards your Elo. That is deliberate: an automated opponent is calibrated to play at its rating, so beating one at 1400 means the same thing as beating a human at 1400. If you want to play without any effect on your rating, guest mode records nothing at all, and duels with a friend are unrated.

Automated opponents hold ordinary accounts, their rating moves with their results, and they appear on the leaderboard. We do not label them during a duel, because knowing mid-game who you are facing would change how the game is played.

Section 7 forbids you from using automated help — that rule is about players gaining an advantage over each other, and it is not contradicted by matchmaking that fills empty seats.

7. Fair play

KORA is built on fair competition. You agree not to use bots, scripts, automated tools, external assistance, or exploits to gain an advantage in a duel.

You agree not to arrange results with another player, to manipulate rankings, or to interfere with matchmaking.

We may remove rating points, reset statistics, suspend or permanently close accounts that compromise competitive integrity.

8. Rankings, rating and statistics

Elo ratings, rankings and statistics exist for competition and entertainment. They carry no monetary value and confer no right.

We may recalculate, adjust or reset ratings and statistics as the platform improves — for instance if a formula changes, or if manipulation is found.

Duels played against a friend through an invitation are unrated: they are recorded and can be replayed, but they do not affect anyone's Elo.

9. What is public

Your username, rating, statistics, rating history, recent duels and leaderboard position are visible to anyone on the internet, without an account, and can be indexed by search engines. There is currently no way to hide a profile while keeping an account.

When you win a duel, KORA offers to share the result. Doing so publishes your opponent's username outside the platform. Only share results in a way you would accept being shared about you.

10. Friends, blocking and notifications

KORA has no chat and no private messages. Players cannot send each other text. The only social features are friend requests, friendships, blocking, and the notifications that come with them.

Friend requests. You can search for a player by username and send them a request, which they can accept or decline. If someone declines, you cannot send them another request for 24 hours — this exists so that requests cannot be used to pester someone. Sending repeated requests to a player who does not want them is harassment under section 11.

Friend duels. Friends can challenge each other through a private invitation. These duels are unrated.

Removing a friend. You can remove a friend at any time. The other player is not told. They simply no longer appear in your friends list, nor you in theirs.

Blocking. You can block any player. We do not notify the player you block, and we never tell anyone who has blocked them. Blocking ends any existing friendship between you and cancels any pending request in either direction.

To the player you block, you become invisible inside KORA: you no longer appear in their search results, and they cannot open your profile or send you a friend request. Your profile stays public everywhere else — blocking hides you from that player, it does not remove your leaderboard entry or your profile from the internet.

If you later unblock someone you were friends with before, that friendship is restored as it was. If you were not friends before, unblocking simply returns you to strangers.

We keep blocking silent on purpose. Telling someone they have been blocked invites retaliation and turns a quiet exit into a confrontation.

Notifications. We send in-app notifications for friend requests, challenges and results. They are not emails, and there is currently no way to turn them off.

11. Acceptable use

You agree not to use KORA to harass other players, to attempt unauthorised access, to disrupt or overload the service, to reverse engineer it, to extract its content or question pool automatically, or to do anything unlawful.

12. Our content

The design, software, branding, questions and original features of KORA belong to Gabriel NDUWAYEZU, except where stated otherwise. You may not copy, distribute, modify or build on them without written permission.

Playing a duel does not give you any right over its questions.

13. Availability

KORA is provided as a beta service. We do not guarantee that it will always be available, or that every feature will always work correctly. We may change, pause or discontinue any part of it.

Deployments and incidents can interrupt a duel in progress.

14. Suspension and termination

We may suspend, restrict or close an account that breaks these Terms, harms the platform, or damages fair competition.

You can ask us to close your account at any time by writing to contact@koraduel.com. What happens to your data is described in section 6 of our Privacy Policy.

15. No warranty

KORA is provided "as is" and "as available". We aim for accuracy, but we do not guarantee that every question, answer, rating or statistic is free of error.

16. Limitation of liability

To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect, incidental or consequential damage arising from your use of KORA. Since KORA is free, our total liability to you is limited to zero.

Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited under the law that applies to you.

17. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as KORA changes. The date at the top always reflects the current version, and significant changes will be announced on the platform. Continuing to use KORA after an update means you accept the revised Terms.

18. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of Burundi, and any dispute shall be brought before the competent courts of Burundi.

If you are a consumer resident in a country whose law gives you the right to bring proceedings before your local courts, or the protection of mandatory provisions of your local law, nothing in these Terms limits those rights.

19. If part of these Terms fails

If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remains in force.

20. Privacy

Your use of KORA is also governed by our Privacy Policy.

21. Contact

Questions about these Terms: contact@koraduel.com.